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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

Posted on 10 February 2018 by John Hartz

Editor's Pick

Tesla is building a 'virtual power plant' using people's homes

South Australia is working with Tesla to install solar power systems on residents homes. Image: REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

The state government of South Australia announced Sunday that it had struck a deal with Tesla to install as many as 50,000 solar-power systems on homes, at no cost to residents.

The system would include both solar panels and Tesla Powerwall batteries, and would become part of a decentralized electric grid managed by software. The system would be funded in part by revenues from electricity, which would not belong to the owners of the homes where the systems were installed.

A pilot version of the program has already begun, and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation spoke to one early recipient whose electric bills had declined substantially. One projection suggested energy bills for participating households would drop by 30%.

Comments

"The plan may be contingent on the outcome of a March election, in which current South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill faces a challenge from a conservative candidate who opposes specifics of the plan, referring to it as a “reckless experiment.”

I dont see why its called a "reckless experiment". The system could be modelled quite well, and only involves a relatively small number of homes, so the state as a whole is not likely to be critically reliant on the system. If it has problems, they have gas fired plant.

Elon Musk has had huge successes with his cars, this space launch vehicle, and tesla power cells so he clearly knows what hes doing with technology. (He could however find a better factory manager).

“Limiting global warming to 1.5 or 2.0°C requires strong mitigation of anthropogenic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Concurrently, emissions of anthropogenic aerosols will decline, due to coemission with GHG, and measures to improve air quality. However, the combined climate effect of GHG and aerosol emissions over the industrial era is poorly constrained. Here we show the climate impacts from removing present-day anthropogenic aerosol emissions and compare them to the impacts from moderate GHG-dominated global warming.

We find a higher sensitivity of extreme events to aerosol reductions, per degree of surface warming, in particular over the major aerosol emission regions. Under near-term warming, we find that regional climate change will depend strongly on the balance between aerosol and GHG forcing.”

And some other research of note that might justify inclusion for discussion on this website at some point. Its not my style to post every latest piece of research, but this one stands out a bit, and just in case it gets missed:

"Research team detects an acceleration in the 25-year satellite sea level record"